Tina's Favorite Movies of 2010

2010 wasn't a great year for movies. Nothing really blew me away, although I enjoyed revisiting many old favorites. I have included on this Top 10 List only movies I had not seen before, even if they were old movies. Of the new movies, the first one I saw in 2010, "It's Complicated," was the funniest movie I saw all year. I'd give "Mao's Last Dancer" the nod for my favorite movie of the year, although I learned more from watching "The Art of the Steal" and "Waiting for Superman." Thank God for documentaries. Finally, in the last month of the year, the Holocaust doubleheader of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and "Sophie's Choice" stood out as moving and classic. So here's what you might want to consider for your NetFlix queue.

1. It’s Complicated (with Nancy @ Hillsborough) – As my favorite sister always says, “Meryl never disappoints.” Alec Baldwin was great, too. Very funny movie with perfect references for the over-50 crowd. Loved it. 4½ tuna cans

20. Standing in the Shadows of Motown (TV) – If Motown is the soundtrack of your youth, you’ve heard all the great musicians featured in this wonderful documentary about the Funk Brothers, the men behind the familiar hits by the Temptations, Four Tops, Martha Reeves, Stevie Wonder and many more. Largely unknown beyond the studios of Detroit, these mostly jazz musicians contributed the funk and the groove that was Motown in its heyday. Just think of the distinctive guitar riff that opens “My Girl” and you will recognize their work immediately. My first documentary of the year, and a terrific one at that. 4½ cans.

42. The Art of the Steal (TV on demand) – Dr. Albert Barnes was strictly an outsider to the Philadelphia establishment and art community that once scorned his collection of post-Impressionist and Modern art on display at the Barnes Foundation he built outside the city. The animosity was so real that Barnes stipulated in his will that the experience of seeing these masterpieces be done only in the building he built and designed for that purpose. Following his death and realizing the value of the collection – today estimated to be more than $25 billion – the power brokers tried for years to pry the collection away from its home and bring it downtown, where it could boost tourism and the coffers of the city. This enthralling tale is the best documentary I have seen since “The Rape of Europa,” an account of how the Nazis stole art from private collections and museums during World War II. The movies have a lot in common, except I think the Nazis actually appreciated the art in much the way Barnes did. 4½ cans.

80. The Kids Are All Right (in Montgomery with Dee and Angela) – Annette Bening is an uptight doctor with control issues and her partner, played by Julianne Moore, is a new age, middle aged woman looking for the right vibe – or something. When the kids in the title, an 18-year old daughter by Bening and a 15-year son named Laser by Moore, track down their sperm donor dad (Mark Ruffalo), relationships begin to change for everyone. Rough around the edges Ruffalo, a single restaurateur who is way too cool to be a real dad, nonetheless brings some perspective to the kids that their Moms could not. He also brings something to Moore that Bening cannot. She had him at “Hello!” 4 cans.

95. Mao’s Last Dancer (@ Montgomery with Angela and Dee) – After a stop for lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant, my pool pals and I passed up a glorious day to see what turned out to be a glorious film. This movie is based on the true story of Li Cunxin, a boy plucked out of his tiny, impoverished village by the Chinese government for special training. With years of hard work and determination, he grows into an accomplished ballet dancer who has an opportunity to study with the Houston Ballet. Young Li assimilates into the American culture rapidly, much to the consternation of the Chinese officials who decide he must return to China. Should he defect and risk both the safety of his family remaining in China and the chance that he may never see them again? Or should he stay and enjoy his new-found freedom and the girl he loves? This is a wondrous ode to ballet, a harsh look at Mao’s regime and a salute to the joys of freedom and the arts. So good you want to see it again an hour later. 4½ cans.

106. The Social Network (Manville, with Chris) – Ironically, the founder of Facebook, Marc Zuckerberg, is so socially inept (as portrayed in this movie) that the man who launched millions of friendships has nearly none of his own. According to the movie, Zuckerberg gets drunk after his girlfriend dumps him, and, holed up in his dorm room at Harvard, trashes her on the Internet. He then concocts a way to capture all of the “Facebook” images of fellow students to rate girls. His rampage becomes an instant hit and attracts the attention of three students working on a social networking site who seek out his computer skills. Zuckerberg morphs their idea into Facebook, leading to suits by them and by his best friend for acing him out of the company just as it explodes with success. The motto here is that you can have a million friends and still be a very lonely guy. Well played by all and written with his usual glibness by Aaron Sorkin. 4 cans.

116. Waiting for Superman (@Montgomery with Dee) – Even Superman is not enough to save the educational system in the U.S. As this documentary points out, it’s not all about money; we spend more to house prisoners for the average 4-year sentence than we do for 12 years of education per student. But by every measure – reading and math scores, percentage of dropouts, percentage of students who attend college – the U.S. is slipping further behind other developed nations, making our ability to fill jobs and grow the economy precarious at best. We have not only jeopardized our future as a nation, but, by allowing the future of individual students to rest on what amounts to the luck of the draw as they vie for precious spots in better schools, the system fails them every day. The solid gains recorded by good teachers in better schools cannot possibly make up for the hordes of truly bad, disinterested teachers still leading classes or, worse, who are flagged for the “rubber room,” waiting for hearings and drawing full pay and benefits. Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is portrayed as the visionary administrator ready to make the hard choices, but she has to face union leader Randi Weingarten, here playing the role of Cruella DeVille. This is a riveting and infuriating story, humanized by the young students and their families who yearn for a good education and the promise of a bright future. 4½ cans.

126. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (TV) – The horrors of the Holocaust hit ever closer to home in this view of WWII through the eyes of the 8-year-old son of a German commandant. When the family leaves Berlin for the father’s new assignment in “the countryside,” the boy leaves behind his friends and wants to explore the nearby “farm.” He encounters an 8-year-old Jewish boy in what is not a farm at all, but a concentration camp run by his father. Despite the barbed wire between them, the two boys strike up a friendship with frequent visits and snacks provided by the German. Young and naïve, he doesn’t see the evil referred to by others in Jews, and he plots to help his friend. The pace quickens considerably at the end of the movie, as the family frantically searches for their little lost boy. Harrowing and moving, this film gives a new perspective to evil. 4½ cans.

127. Sophie’s Choice (TV) – If you’re going to have Holocaust month at the movies, you might as well go all in with this classic, which I had never seen. Meryl Streep is a Polish refugee living with her American boyfriend (Kevin Kline) in a Brooklyn boarding house when aspiring Southern author Peter McNichol moves in to form a friendly threesome. Her very existence has resulted from a series of choices, and she has secrets she cannot bring herself to share. Streep won the Oscar for her role here, and she really demonstrates her ability to become the character she portrays. In Brooklyn, she lives an almost normal life, trying desperately not to let her past overtake her future. In the scenes depicting her experiences in a concentration camp she is thin and frail, her skin nearly transparent and her eyes sunken and scared. The secrets and the realities are too much for anyone to bear. I don’t know how I managed to miss this movie for all of these years (it came out in 1982), but it was worth the wait. 5 cans. And I never want to see it again.

131. The King’s Speech (@ Princeton, with Nancy and Hank) – Though she feared this story of the stammering King of England would be a British version of the Mel Tillis story, my favorite sister agreed to let it be our Christmas Day movie, extending a long tradition that has included everything from “The Godfather” to “Where Angels Go Trouble Follows” to “Dreamgirls.” She would tell you that the whole thing would have run 30 minutes if the poor King (Colin Firth) could just spit out the words. Of course, the fact that the film broke twice (just as King Edward was about to abdicate) merely extended the time and the frustration – in her eyes. The story was interesting, the acting first rate, but I would have to agree it was trying to hear him trying and trying to speak. So much for the King’s English. Geoffrey Rush as the speech coach (with a face that only Mrs. Potato Head could love) becomes more of a therapist and friend than merely a coach. His exchanges with the recalcitrant King bring welcome humor to an otherwise drawn-out period piece. At the end, we kept waiting for Porky Pig to pop out on the screen and declare with his own stammer, “That’s all folks.” 4 cans from me (Nan grants a mere 3, being generous, she says), maybe more if we had seen every scene, but maybe not, either.